REGION: Wildflower show could be best in years

Cool weather has delayed color peak

The curtain is rising on what experts believe may be one of the
most breathtaking wildflower shows in memory.

Bloom seekers are descending on desert wildflower hot spots and
soon will be fanning out into coastal and inland valleys to feast
their eyes on colorful carpets of blossoms.

"The crowds are just getting wound up," said Michael Rodriques,
regional interpretive specialist for California State Parks in
Borrego Springs, the gateway to the 600,000-acre Anza-Borrego
Desert State Park in eastern San Diego County.

The anticipation is building.

That's partly because of recent disappointments.

"Last year was pretty pitiful," said Kay Madore, botanist at the
Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve in Southwest Riverside
County.

And the year before wasn't much better.

But with Southern California enjoying its wettest winter since
2005 and rain falling everywhere, chances are good spring 2010 will
deliver an exceptional show, flower experts say.

"We had pretty good timing for the rain," Rodriques said. "They
were long-soaking rains, which is very important in terms of
getting moisture down to the seed stock."

Most of Southern California has received as much or more
moisture than falls, on average, for an entire year.

And the product of that moisture is about to explode.

Fred Roberts of Oceanside, rare-plant botanist for the San Diego
and Riverside county chapters of the California Native Plant
Society, said that, for example, "the Mojave Desert is probably
going to be just stunning this year."

Behind schedule

At the same time, the region has been having cooler-than-normal
weather.

"Because of the cold temperatures brought in by the winter
storms that have lingered into March, everything is a little behind
schedule," said Rob Hicks, a Riverside County park interpreter on
the Santa Rosa Plateau.

At the plateau, the profusion of color tends to peak in late
March, Hicks said. But this time around the best viewing may be in
April.

Likewise, Anza-Borrego's peak normally hits around March 10, and
Rodriques said this year it may instead arrive two to three weeks
into the month.

The delay comes with a risk: That the show will fail to live up
to expectations.

Up on the Riverside County plateau, the blossoms could be
eclipsed.

"If the flowers wait too long to bloom, the annual European
grasses will grow too tall for people to enjoy much of the color of
the flowers," Hicks said. "The grasses grow real quick regardless
of the temperature. And the flowers sometimes lose out on the
battle for attention."

The longer flowers wait to pop out on the desert floor in
eastern San Diego County, the greater the chance they could be
eclipsed by exotic, fast-growing Saharan mustard plants, Rodriques
said.

Then there's the possibility the mercury could soar.

"If it suddenly went to 95 and windy, it would just kill the
flowers," Rodriques said.